After having – not for the first time in recent seasons – bad luck with refs from Hertfordshire, this time around Kevin Hill against Chester last Tuesday, home game lost 1-2, previously with Grant Hegley and Paul Taylor from the same county, the Stags now travel up to Darlington on Saturday.

And the Stags now hope to avenge their last two away defeats by the odd goal up in Quakers Country. Yet the Quakers are a side that have often faced the Stags in league encounters and did so in all the seasons the Stags played in the old division 3 (N) and most seasons the Stags have played in the basement division as the Quakers since 1958-59 only have been out of the league's lowest tier for five seasons – four of them in the old third with the Stags facing Darlo in two of them – and one in the Conf – 1989-90 – and in 1990-91, the Quakers went straight through the old fourth only to immediately drop back to the basement, where they have remained ever since.

And the Quakers had to wait nearly fifty years for their first-ever victory at Field Mill – and that was a 3-2 on March 6, 1982 in one of – in my opinion - worst seasons following the Stags.

And before that, Darlington had only managed five draws in Stagsland – all score-draws – in 24 outings with the Stags scoring twice or more on all occasions bar two – when a solitary Stags goal clinched it. The first score-draw was also the highest one. The first-ever league fixture between the sides, on November 5, 1932, saw the teams share six goals in front of 7346 with Johnson netting a hat-trick for the Stags. And the biggest Quakers away victory was a 3-0 very late in the 1993-94 season when Darlington badly needed the points to avoid the league's wooden spoon – and made it at the expense of Northampton, who eventually stayed up due to then Conf Champs Kidderminster incredibly not being eligible to be promoted due to ground regulations – a very strange decision due to the fact that the Harriers enjoyed their best-ever FA Cup run. And the biggest defeat at Darlington was a 1-5 as recently as on February 6, 1999, when Harper netted the consolation goal for the Stags.
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On the other hand, Darlington have been hit for 6-0 on two occasions – on December 12, 1953 (scorers Murray 2 – came from the Quakers – talk about putting some over the old club - , Reeve, Darwin 2, Daley) and on November 10, 1962, scorers Wagstaff 2, Chapman R, Weir, Hollett, Morris pen – the latter being the last of three consecutive Stags home victories to a score of 14-0! The other victims were Chesterfield on October 22 and Barrow to a 5-0 stuffing four days later. And the game with the most goals was a Stags 7-3 victory on November 3, 1956. The Stags' scorers then in front of 7338 at Field Mill were Chapman 3, Murray 2, Anderson and Darwin one apiece.

And it's no wonder, then, that the teams have yet to play a goal-less league game in Stagsland, compared to four at a place the writer travelled through by train on every occasion visiting Mansfield so far – and other places as well – over the last few years. Fact is also, that the Stags have scored more than a century of Field Mill league goals against Darlington over the years.

And the very last away game at Feethams, Darlington's old ground, was won by a very late Allen Tankard free-kick on October 13, 2001. And away, the Stags have won every fourth game in Quakers country, the biggest as early as on September 16, 1933, when two goals from Munning, one each from Rayner and goal ace Johnson secured the Stags' first division 3 (N) win that season thanks to a 4-1 hammering. The Stags also won their first-ever league away game at Feethams – and that proved to be league history as the 3-1 on March 18, 1933 with two Johnson goals and one from Prior was enough to secure the Stags' first-ever league away victory at the 38th attempt!

Last term, the Stags threw away a HT 1-0 lead at Darlington to a 1-2 defeat mainly due to poor Carlton Palmer management. And at Field Mill, Rhys Day missed a penalty in the first minute. But the same player equalized in the last, securing the Stags point. In the end, that 1-1 draw proved costly for the Quakers, who just missed out on a play-off spot. And the home game in September was to be Carlton Palmer's last Field Mill one as Stags boss in a 2-2 draw, the Stags leading twice. Darlington's latest home game was a goal-less draw against Grimsby, while the Stags managed the same result at Shrewsbury in their latest away fixture.